


your soul, in flames

by ekourege



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Burnish Awakenings are Inconvenient, Burnish Galo Thymos, Fire, Galo stumbles his way thru a house fire and is probably suffering from smoke inhalation, Gen, Kray Foresight Sucks, One Shot, Pre-Galo-hen, Pre-Movie, Tragedy, also he's like 8 as this happens., loss of family, traumatic events, what happens when you light yourself on fire during a traumatic event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekourege/pseuds/ekourege
Summary: Galo Thymos wished he didn’t remember the fire.Unfortunately for him, it was impossible not to.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	your soul, in flames

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was difficult. 
> 
> For a couple reasons, one being that the wiki is still heavily under construction and I've only seen the movie once. The other being that I'm not sure if Galo's single-minded personality is a result of the fire and being "saved" by Kray (because it's easier to focus yourself towards what you can "gain" rather than what you've lost, and I don't think Galo ever saw a therapist or really talked to anyone about the trauma he went through.) Characterizing Galo is easy IN THEORY. Writing him is another matter ENTIRELY. Yall kno this is gettin revised when the fuckign blu-rays release out
> 
> But like........ needed to write......... promare fic................ burnish galo is such a cool au............ for a second i thought it happened in the movie and i was SO hype.......
> 
> Also HC that Galo's mom was a single mother >:3c
> 
> ANYWAY ENJOY

Galo admits his memory has never been the best, even before the fire. 

His childhood, the time _before_ , is a blur he can only half conjure, a brief period where things weren’t all good but weren’t all bad either. Names are something he can remember only on a good day, and he’s _terrible_ with multi-step directions. It’s not something he _likes_ per se, but it’s a part of him. That’s just who Galo Thymos _was._

If only he didn’t remember the fire.

He was sleeping one moment - and that part he doesn’t remember! - and then he was awake, coughing and hacking and rubbing his eyes, trying to clear out the cloying smoke. It didn’t work, no matter how hard he coughed or rubbed at them, sleepy and panicked and disoriented and- where was his mom? Did someone burn something?

It was so hot, when did it get so hot in here?

With the smoke in his eyes, Galo wouldn’t have even noticed the fire if it hadn’t been roaring in his ears, pounding at his eardrums and demanding that he pay attention.

 _‘Oh,’_ he remembers thinking, peering through watery eyes at his on-fire room. _‘A fire.’_

It was eating the furniture, having gripped the nightstand by his bedside and swallowed it whole. The walls were crumbling around him and- and-

 _He had to get out._

Galo had to get out- or he would be swallowed whole, too.

With that, he vaguely recalls throwing off his smoldering blanket, coughing so hard he nearly gags. Scrambling to the door (which was on fire! Galo noted a bit hysterically) and throwing it open, he barrelled into the hallway with blurred vision, unsure of what he’d meet.

He was running, spikes of pain pricking his feet as he ran over what he hoped wasn’t fire, but almost surely was. His chest hurt weirdly, an almost pulsating ache that was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, but Galo - ever an idiot - attributed it to all the smoke in his lungs: there was so much of it that it hung thick and cloudy over what once was his ceiling!

Through the hallway, to the right, clenching his teeth as fire licked his arms and singed his hair, down the stairs - one, two, three, four, _thirteen_ \- and ran through the kitchen, the foyer and then- and then- 

_He was out._

The night air met his aching lungs, chilled the burns and over-heated skin from the fire raging at his back. He stumbled to a stop by the steps of his porch, nearly doubling over as he sucked in the fresh air. His eyes hurt. His face burned. His throat was sore. His chest hurt. _Everything_ hurt.

But his mind was on a loop, caught on the thought that something was _wrong_ , that he was in _danger_. That he needed to get out. He _would_ make it out. He would. The fire raged behind him, and Galo took another step forward, nearly unseeing, down the steps to what was once his house. He took another, then another. Two, three, and then he stepped onto cold concrete, untouched by the fire that lay waste to the house behind him. His home.

And then he collided with a firm chest. 

A person.

His brain freezes. He hadn’t even seen them. Galo looks up, into the eyes of a blond-haired grownup. There’s a smile on the man’s face, telling him that everything would be alright, even without having said anything.

It kind of reminds him of his mom’s.

 _His mom-_ where was she? He was out. Galo was out. He needed to find his mom because there was a _fire_ and it was _dangerous_. He wouldn’t want her to be hurt!

An arm curls around him, holding him. His chest pulses and it hurts so bad that he gasps. He feels the pulse again, feeling like his heart is going to burst from his chest. 

And then he’s on fire. 

_He’s on fire._

There are gasps from somewhere behind him, and that arm that had curled around him was shoving him away, hard. Galo stumbles, still on fire but not in pain, and falls to the ground. 

The fire isn’t yellow and orange like the house fire, but a flickering rainbow of color, of shifting teal and pink. He stares at his flaming hands for a moment, and even though he’s on fire, this fire is… Friendly? Nothing like the fire from before, the one that got smoke in his eyes and tried to swallow him whole. This fire clung to him, protected him. The pulsing in his chest that was so painful before settled into a pleasant thrum.

Then, Galo makes a mistake. 

He looks up, towards the person with kind eyes and warm arms that held him one moment and pushed him away the next. Those eyes that had told him it would be alright just a moment ago are hard, angry and hateful.

Galo _looks,_ because his eyes don’t hurt anymore (and neither do his feet or his chest, he notes with a bit of confusion), and the man is gripping a stump of an arm with the other - the one he’d held him with- 

Wait.

Galo was on fire.

Fire… hurts. Hurts people.

Did- did _he_ do that? Cling to that kind man with his weird fire, and hurt him?

He looks at the way the man’s teeth clench, as if in pain, and his stomach drops. His flames, however, flare out. The bystanders scream, some of them pulling out their phones, calling - someone? The police?

Galo needed to leave. He needed to get away right now before he hurt someone else. (What if he hurt his _mom_ with it?)

Scrambling to his feet, he takes one look at the terrified, fearful crowd and the hand clenched around a ruined stump of flesh and _bolts._

The rumblings of the fire and crowd follow him, fearfully crowing something about “a burnish”. He runs faster, trying to outrun whatever they’re all saying.

His feet pound against the pavement as he makes a mad dash away, away from the fire, from the man, from the people, from his _mom._ He’s still on fire, and it doesn’t hurt.

Galo’s chest is warm, and something in him - him but not _him_ at the same time - feels glad, satisfied. 

It’s terrifying. He runs faster.

Yes, Galo Thymos wished he couldn’t remember the fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](https://ekourege.tumblr.com/) for writing updates and frantic promare posting
> 
> let me know what ya thought!


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